Can You?

Can you do the Royal Anne? I can.




With a little help from my pickers - thanks guys!

Quality Time

This was alot of fun - nothing like swimming in a mountain stream to refresh your doggie heart. Gracie swam so hard and in such cold water I thought she was going to collapse. After non-stop swimming and fetching and shaking water all over grandma, she finally took a sweet doggie nap - I'm sure her head was filled with this.

One of their Early Stops

So about that AI concert. We are fortunate I think to have caught all these fun kids early in their tour. They still are having such a great time being famous and they don't seem sick of it at all or sad that they cannot live a normal life. In fact, they were all so sweet to spend time with excited teens such as these two:

I have to say it was pretty cool to see these guys in real life and express to them our admiration and devotion as fans. In a classy way, of course. My favorite actually rose up out of the floor while playing her piano - so cool! And my daughter's favorite did that too only in a blue cloud while singing about angels. I was moved to a little screaming myself!

From this wild time we moved on in our weekend to some great family time, AND quality time with my grandpup. More about that later.

A Long and Winding Road

What a fun time we had this weekend. It was filled with Idol music such as the song in my title, more about that excitement later.

But first about those literal long and winding roads. After the concert we drove clear out to the coast in the wee morning hours. I roughly counted the miles in my head before agreeing to this venture but I was not even close. I roughly knew where we were spending the night - even had a few printed maps.

But I really need to pay more attention to important details, even when they arrive in my inbox weeks before they are needed. They should have little red flags on them that say, "hello, this will be important one morning at 2 am in the sand dunes, or one hot afternoon on some dusty logging road in the middle of Tillamook forest!" So the campsite that should have been just obvious was buried in endless dark B loops and C loops with mostly sleeping people and many crazy 4-wheelin night owls. We considered calling our men's cell phones but of course, they're sleeping. And then the second night campground that only had 2 simple loops was not just "right over the bridge" and so once again we are driving endlessly on the wrong road. Only this time the peril was not the dead of night, but sheer cliffs and scary dustclouded, one-way curves.

We finally just had to pull-over, stop and try to think clearly. Daughter #2 said her coping mechanisms were no longer working and thought maybe she should just call for help. You can see how well that worked out. Or maybe she was just trying to reach her boyfriend in Iowa to warn him not to travel with her mother.

Photo Shoot Challenges

The more I shoot photos of faces the more I like getting somber looks. The eyes are at their biggest and the expressions are so interesting. So I was so happy when my willing subjects could pull this off.

But it didn't last long:

Stackable Sistas

I almost Forgot!

I am a great-aunt
AGAIN! This is sweet Bailey May - we can't wait to meet her in person:

Great Lakes, Great Leaps

A little more from Michigan - we can now correctly pronounce these names: Wacatawa, Muskegon and Saugatuck. AND we bought the T-shirt.

Firecracker Baby

I was gonna post over at her blog but it's been somewhat inactive lately. I guess being in college burns her out a little in the category of writing. Nevertheless, she has been tirelessly working away all summer, which is half over for her, by the way. Which means she'll be leaving me again soon, sniff sniff.

But here's to you, dear middle child, bless you on your birthday! Or at least bless you on the day after, since our celebrating of you got a bit squeezed by yesterday's activities. Today we will finally get your birthday treat finished and the rest of your gifts purchased AND wrapped! You tolerate being the middle child with such a graceful smile. And now I will officially stop calling you "child" - happy 21st!